


Closed and Open Chapters

by greygerbil



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:29:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Georgi doesn't feel like time is on his side anymore, but luckily, Chris is.
Relationships: Christophe Giacometti/Georgi Popovich
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Anime FF, Rare Ships!!! on BINGO 2020





	Closed and Open Chapters

**Author's Note:**

> Rare Ships On Bingo prompt was: Time.

Georgi glanced out of the round airplane window, seeing the lights of Zürich airport underneath and beyond, in the black distance, the shining sprawl of the city. Though it should have been a relief after a combined twelve hours spent in Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg and then on the flight, he just felt like crying again.

It was not that he did not want to be here. Just about the only thing about retirement that Georgi had looked forward to was finally getting to be with his boyfriend. However, he’d lived in St. Petersburg since he was nine years old and as he’d sat in a cramped hallway corner with hundreds of others waiting for flights delayed by the storm, the goodbye had become long and painful, with the rain running down the windows and the dim light overhead feeding his melancholy. After two weeks of racing to pack up his whole life and send it south, he’d been too tired to stay awake and too nervous to sleep, in case he missed any shred of information about his flight on the boards or through the speakers. While he was waiting, he’d also made the mistake of scrolling through his instagram, full of former competitors teasing their new programs, posting videos of jumps to prove they hadn’t lost them over the holidays, joking around with their rinkmates, showing off potential new costumes. Georgi hoped he would at some point be able to look at them again without wanting to turn time back ten years, when so many seasons had still stretched before him.

So he was homesick and lost and really just wanted to hug Chris to himself, but though Chris would have picked him up had his flight arrived on time at seven in the evening, he couldn’t be up at four in the morning when he had practice later that day.

It wasn’t important, Georgi told himself. With a taxi, he’d be at Chris’s home in an hour. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t go to a restaurant and then stroll through night-time Zürich past the opera house like they’d planned to. In the end, Chris wouldn’t be holding his hand every hour of the day here, either. He was still competing and Georgi would have to find a job himself or he wouldn’t be able to stay at all. The decision would have to be made fast, too, and that pressure put his stomach in knots. He wanted to get things in order right now somehow, here from the airplane seat, but at the same time he didn’t quite know where to start at all.

The plane finally landed and Georgi followed the sluggish mass of tired people through the passport check and the baggage claim beyond, reflecting briefly on the fact that, tired as he was, with eyes still burning from tears he’d shed in Russia and somewhere over Europe, he couldn’t have sworn the plane hadn’t just put him down in St. Petersburg again if it weren’t for the lack of Cyrillic letters. The backs of airports all seemed to exist in the same undefined space between places. When was the first time he had seen one? Talagi Airport by Archangelsk, from which he’d flown to Pulkovo Airport with his older half-sister, who had accompanied him so he could try out for Yakov’s team.

Eventually, Georgi and the other passengers spilled out into the sleek metal cavern of the arrivals area, tugging and carrying their bags, and as the crowd started to disperse around him, Georgi stood scanning for any hints where he would find the taxis or at least a bus into the city, hands tight around the grip of his suitcase and the strap of his backpack. Maybe he would try to track down an open coffee shop first, if there was one, and hopefully jumpstart his brain out of the thick fog of memories.

Someone placed a hand on his side and, while leaning over Georgi’s shoulder from behind, a kiss on his cheek.

“Good morning, chéri.”

If he hadn’t been so tired, Georgi would have jumped just like his heart had at the sound of Chris’s deep voice in his ear. He spun around and wrapped his arms around Chris’s neck, feeling Chris’s shoulders shake with laughter. He kissed Georgi on the neck and the earlobe and then the mouth.

“What are you doing here?” Georgi asked when they finally parted.

“I figured I couldn’t let you wander through Zürich by yourself in the dark of night.”

Chris took a step back to look him up and down. Georgi smiled tightly, aware he was a mess. He’d put on tight black jeans which Chris liked and a blue button-down shirt, but both were rumpled, just as his hair was dishevelled. In the walls with mirrors he’d passed somewhere in the labyrinth of hallways around the baggage claim, he’d already seen he was pale and tired-looking. Chris, on the other hand, was desperately handsome with a bedhead and his glasses, wearing a wide v-neck shirt and old blue jeans.

“I missed you,” Georgi said.

“Same to you. Come on.” He grabbed Georgi’s abandoned suitcase. “I’m here with my car. Did you get to sleep on the plane?”

“Not really,” Georgi said evasively. He didn’t feel like admitting that he’d spent the flight spiralling about his future. “There were turbulences.” He followed him through the thin, neon-lit crowd. “Aren’t you going to be tired at practice today?”

“I’ll take the heat from Josef for that. It’s still May, anyway,” Chris said with an easy shrug. “I wanted to be the first to greet you in your new home.”

As they walked out of the airport, Georgi lowered his head because he felt tears well in his eyes again. He was surprised that there were any left. This time, at least, he was simply touched by Chris’s words. He’d never regret joining him, he was already sure of that, even if for some reason he ended up cursing Zürich in a year’s time. He would have moved to the North Pole for Chris, even though they’d only been together for a year and hadn’t spent most of that in the same country.

Georgi helped Chris heave his suitcase into the back of Chris’s silver Volkswagen Golf and then curled into the passenger’s seat.

“Now, what’s going on?” Chris asked as he turned the key in the ignition. He did not pull out of the parking space even as the motor purred to life.

“Nothing,” Georgi murmured, knowing Chris would not buy it. “It was a long night.” When Chris still didn’t react, he added slowly: “I’m worried I can’t stay. I need to go look for work.”

“Not at four-twenty in the morning,” Chris pointed out.

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do,” Georgi said, not quite answering him. “I do have that call about the ice show tour in July tomorrow, but that’s not certain.”

“Is your knee going to be okay until then? You just had your last operation.”

“Well, I don’t really care. I want to stay here with you. I won’t have to do competition-level jumps, I can skate through some pain.”

“There’s no reason to risk messing up your leg permanently.” Chris gently placed his hand over Georgi’s thigh. “You don’t need a job tomorrow. Besides, if you want to keep living here, I’ll just marry you and you’ll be my house-husband.”

Georgi had to smile.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said.

“I’m not. I’m perfectly serious.” Chris shrugged and smiled. Georgi expected him to break out into laughter or see a twinkle in his green eyes that told him Chris was messing with him, but Chris only put his hands on the steering wheel and finally turned the car out of the parking spot. “Let’s get you home.”

“I love you,” Georgi said, choked.

Now Chris laughed, though softly, fondly. “Don’t tell me you’re really going to cry, chéri.”

“I can’t promise,” Georgi muttered.

Chris chuckled. “I love you, too,” he said.

Georgi burst out into tears again. However, as he wiped his face with the back of his hand, he was not sad, only endlessly relieved to be with Chris, who could always make you believe things could turn out alright.


End file.
